Noah was clearly very influenced by his fiery mother, who did so much and sacrificed so much and stood up to SO MUCH to keep Noah safe amongst a lot of hardship, danger, and heartache. I still found this to be a really good and accessible take for the unfamiliar on Apartheid, South African colonialism, and the ways those things interacted and whose effects are still being felt today.Īnd yes, it was different reading it this time through the lens of being a mother. He doesn’t hold back on describing how discriminatory, oppressive, and horrible it was, but as a comedian he also is able to pull out humor, whether it’s dark humor or just the general humor of growing up and the moments of joy and happiness he did have (as let’s be real, even in horrible societal situations, there is still joy and life to be lived). One of the strongest aspects about this book is how Noah presents his childhood in South Africa in the waning and post-years of Apartheid, and how he finds humor, vulnerability, and introspection in his story of being a biracial child in a system that criminalized his very existence. The second and more pressing was that when I last read this book it was before I was a mom, and now that I am a mom I was curious to see if that would change my perceptions of the novel. The first was that we always have pretty good conversations during our meetings, and I was interested to see what people had to say. This wasn’t my first time reading Trevor Noah’s memoir “Born a Crime”, as I read it around the time it came out, but it was fun revisiting it for book club for a couple of reasons. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother-his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. ![]() Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.īorn a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Song Inspiration: “Mama Tried” by Merle Haggardīook Description: The memoir of one man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed. This honest and poignant memoir adapted from the #1 New York Times bestseller Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood will astound and inspire readers as well as offer a fascinating perspective on South Africa’s tumultuous racial history.Where You Can Get This Book: | Amazon | Indiebound In a country where racism barred blacks from social, educational, and economic opportunity, Trevor surmounted staggering obstacles and created a promising future for himself thanks to his mom’s unwavering love and indomitable will. But he did exist-and from the beginning, the often-misbehaved Trevor used his keen smarts and humor to navigate a harsh life under a racist government. Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, shares his remarkable story of growing up in South Africa with a black South African mother and a white European father at a time when it was against the law for a mixed-race child to exist. We do horrible things to one another because we don’t see the person it affects. “A piercing reminder that every mad life-even yours-could end up a masterpiece." -JASON REYNOLDS, New York Times bestselling author The host of The Daily Show, Trevor Noah, shares his personal story and the injustices he faced while growing up half black, half white in South Africa under and after apartheid in this New York Times bestselling young readers' adaptation of his adult memoir.
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